NEW HAVEN — The Board of Alders’ Finance Committee voted to send the city’s $556.6 million budget to the full board, but not before moving $2.3 million away from some of Mayor Toni Harp’s priorities such as executive staff raises to line items including health care and the rainy day fund.

The committee made no changes to the overall size of the budget in three hours of debate, also proposing no changes to expected revenue. However, $1.8 million in departmental spending and $483,172 in personnel costs were moved elsewhere in the package. This meant the budgeted police and fire overtime accounts losing $1.1 million and $430,000, respectively, from what was included in Mayor Toni Harp’s proposed budget.

“We of course support our Police Department, we cherish the work they do; there’s a lot going on and we want to have their back,” said Alder Adam Marchand, D-25, who moved the package of amendments to Harp’s proposed general fund budget. “But overtime is a major cost driver in their operating budget.”

“We know some things within this amendment of the budget will change before our second reading, but we want to send a strong message that we didn’t agree with the raises,” said board President Tyisha Walker-Myers, D-23.

The amended budget creates a new line item for the Commission on Affordable Housing to establish a new commission after the board voted to adopt the findings of the Affordable Housing Task Force. The budget awards $92,799 to the commission, which must establish its own budget, although Marchand recommended commissioning studies and conducting training as potential uses.

Additionally, the amended budget adds an additional $250,000 to the $750,000 increase allocated to the Board of Education in Harp’s proposed budget. Alders last year flat-funded the education budget.

The rainy day fund, which stands at zero, receives $900,000 in the amended budget, and $1 million is added to the proposed medical benefits fund.

“We have chronically underfunded our medical benefits and so $1 million more than last year was a step in the right direction,” Marchand said.

For most of the night’s proceedings, Alder Anna Festa, D-10, attempted to look for places to chop funding to reallocate toward debt services, expressing her concern that the city’s fiscal situation was not as rosy as her colleagues believed.

“With every fee we owe and everything we’re underfunding, (the tax rate) technically should’ve gone up, but we didn’t,” she said. “So, technically, we’re not in a position to fund the items proposed to us by the administration.”

Among the areas Festa proposed cutting were line items within the Family Justice Center, Market New Haven, several positions beyond what were cut in the approved amended budget, the registrar of voters and youth services. The others on the committee disagreed each time.

Alders gave impassioned testimony on the importance of the Family Justice Center, sharing stories about how domestic violence services could save lives. They said marketing the city is important for New Haven on a global scale. They said positions such as a bilingual clerk at the registrar of voters and a body camera specialist in the Police Department were non-negotiable to serve city residents.

Festa also said she was “torn” on the school board budget, because she believes school district staff have been evasive and have not inspired confidence in her that they are being fiscally prudent, bringing up the district’s multiyear CFO vacancy.

“I don’t want to funnel more money into the Board of Education until they get their finances under control,” she said. “Is it going to go to supporting classrooms? Is it going to go toward supporting our kids? Where’s it going to go?”

Alder Jeanette Morrison, D-22, said the alders cannot control how the school board spends its money.

“We have to support our Board of Education; last year we weren’t in a position to support anyone, anything, nothing, and taxes went up,” she said. “This year, we have a little money we can move around.”

In a series of proposed policy amendments, Festa had more success. Her proposed amendments — that any proposed salary increases to executive management and confidential employees be submitted to alders for approval and that alders act on any of those proposed salary increases within 120 days — both were approved.

Additionally, two of her amendments ordering the mayor to deliver the five-year budget plan to alders on July 1 and for the Healthcare Task Force to deliver an actuarial report into the potential cost benefits of providing benefits through the state partnership plan passed.

Festa’s two amendments requesting reports for spending on Harp’s security detail and on Superintendent of Schools Carol Birks’ security detail were shot down by the others on the committee, seen as being too personal. Marchand said he did see the proposed amendment as an opportunity to officially state his support for the mayor using a security detail.

“I’ve heard a quite mean and disparaging tone about that,” he said. “I don’t think they’re doing her grocery shopping for her. There’s this notion out there that it’s part of her being pampered, which I think is unbelievably wrong. When you’re the mayor of a city, you’re taking on a lot and your life is public in a way that hardly any of us could ever understand.”

As various amendments and proposals were shot down, Festa repeated that she was sensitive to the importance of all city departments, but she worries that the city is spending in its proposed budget as though it’s a city that isn’t one year removed from an 11 percent tax rate increase.